Help With Isaiah Context

[Billiards Ball]

On 10/11/2019 at 1:38 AM, Open7 said:

I am currently in the book of Isaiah. My question is to do with the order the book is written.

I am trying to understand the logic, it doesn’t appear to be written chronologically. If it is not, what is the logic to the order of the chapters?

Thanks!

In Bible times, stories weren't always told chronologically. For example, Genesis has a "two telling," two stories in a row with chronologies of the same event, creation focused on God's perspective and then creation focused on the dawn of man.

Many important details in the Bible are chronological, and I would think Luke is chronological, but the gospels are told as stories without being rooted in exact chronology IMHO.

[Isaiah43:25]

I read through an NIV chronological bible last year and am doing it again. Pretty crazy how books like Isaiah and Jeremiah jump ALL over the place. While i don't believe the chronological interpretation by that group is inspired, it is still very helpful. It was also cool to see in context how different prophets prophesied to the different kings of Israel and Judah. It was definitely edifying, and probably more helpful than reading articles on it.

[dhchristian]

On 10/11/2019 at 1:38 AM, Open7 said:

I am currently in the book of Isaiah. My question is to do with the order the book is written.

I am trying to understand the logic, it doesn’t appear to be written chronologically. If it is not, what is the logic to the order of the chapters?

There are prophecies in Isaiah and other Prophecies that defy time, in the course of one paragraph you can jump from the first advent of messiah to the second, to a near fulfillment in Isaiah's time. God operates beyond time and Space and is not limited by them. All of the Background information given in these replies to you is essential to understanding the chronology, but ultimately Only the Holy Ghost can teach you and show you the meaning and chronology. Pray the Prayer found in Psalm 143:10, And He will teach you.

An example of this would be Isaiah 61 which Jesus quoted parts of but stopped at a certain point because the day of vengeance was in the future. In other words the prophecy Jumped a couple of thousand years in one sentence. There are also prophecies with dual fulfilments such as Immanuel prophecies and Isaiah 51 which speaks of both the destruction of Jerusalem under Babylon and in the future during the great tribulation. 

[Justin Adams]

On 10/11/2019 at 5:03 PM, Open7 said:

talks about the mountain of the lord

Cosmic Mountain. Eden, Throne, Divine Council. Find out about all that and it will become clearer yet...

[JohnD]

Writing in ancient times (and in the Middle East) was not accomplished as

in modern (and Western) times. 1,2,3,4,5,6... then 1a. 1b. 1c...

Often times the author would tell of the over all first and then go back and fill in

details. We do the same today sometimes in story telling.

Part of it you have to realize that even the methods of writing was still pretty much in

flux as well in those days.

Caution!

Beware of those who take such things as evidences to support their unbiblical beliefs.

Higher and Lower criticism, for example, tries to impose the unbiblical belief (that these 

differences with more modern writing techniques) supports their conclusion that Isaiah did not

write all of the book accredited to him.  That students of the school of Isaiah continued to write

for him in his name.

The thrust of the higher / lower critic is that no one could know the name of Cyrus so many years before he was born.

The very flower of modern science... unbelief in the miraculous (i.e. attributes of the Divine) which is why they draw

such a blank at the cause of the Big Bang or of the wave experiment in quantum physics. I can just see their expressions

now... TILT!

Old Timers will appreciate this word for the modern DIGITIZED!

Blank.

Stupefied.

Stymied.

Stuck.

Won't get past this.

Please Reboot.

I ended my aspirations to become a Baptist pastor with the test taking on Isaiah at seminary extension in 1988 or 89

over what has come to be known as Deutero Isaiah and Trito Isaiah where in the correct answers to the test were that Isaiah

was written by multiple authors... not the one author (the Holy Spirit through) Isaiah. In the hallway as I prepared to leave as the

rest of the class finished up on their tests, the instructor came out to talk to me. I answered the questions then commented

that it was not true but I answered the questions the way the course required. This troubled the instructor. I told him I was troubled

that this sort of thing was accepted as seminary curricula. He attempted to equate my objection with novice superstition but I assured

him this was from the Holy Spirit that such questioning of the origin of biblical texts undermines the Bible itself. 

He was still unconvinced, but after I cited things like the way the texts of Jeremiah were summarily burned by King Jehoiakim and how he

rewrote them and added a whole lot more as the result (which is another reason why Jeremiah's texts also  are out of order as we would consider it in modern 

times), I left the seminary and the denomination. ← there were more reasons (dithering on Masonry, nudes at Baylor art courses, and the overall quota for money mentality

of the newsletters and Sunday school roles... all of which had been boiling over in my estimation for years by that point).

I later heard Chuck Missler's answer to the matter of Deutero / Trito Isaiah:

John 12:38–41 (AV)
38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,
40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
41 These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

Jesus quoted Isaiah from both sides of the alleged rift between "schools of Isaiah" and attributed both to that same Isaiah.

Then Missler added, "...if you don't believe Jesus Christ you have much bigger problems than who wrote the book of Isaiah."

Oh how I wish I knew that in 1988!

Too bad, because the instructor was a good man... a pastor who a couple years earlier taught a course and the story was brought to his attention 

one day in class about a young teen girl who succumbed to temptation and was pregnant... she confessed it to her Southern Baptist Church one

Sunday morning from the pulpit and was excommunicated by the congregation. The instructor's response, "Terrible tragedy!"

Amen!

My point in all this?

The traditions of man are EVIL!

They worm their way into the thinking of otherwise good people, into the teachings of seminaries and Church doctrines and dogma. 

We must begin at the beginning.

2 Peter 1:20-21 which we are told to know first that the entire prophetic Bible is of no private interpretation nor of the will of man but

by the Holy Spirit who wrote the Bible through the writing prophets in the first place.

Then we test the Spirit to be certain it is he (1 John 4:1) by the Bible itself (Acts 17:11, 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Deuteronomy 29:29 (AV)
29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Isaiah 28:9–13 (AV)
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

[Prycejosh1987]

On 10/11/2019 at 6:38 AM, Open7 said:

I am currently in the book of Isaiah. My question is to do with the order the book is written.

I am trying to understand the logic, it doesn’t appear to be written chronologically. If it is not, what is the logic to the order of the chapters?

Thanks!

I think it is to bring more spiritual meaning. The old testament in terms of books is supposed to be in order, but if you read the stories for example in kings, the stories are not in order.